Stop the Doubling & Tripling of Tickets, Ban the Boot, & Return Seized Vehicles in Chicago
Stop the Doubling & Tripling of Tickets, Ban the Boot, & Return Seized Vehicles in Chicago
The Issue
For years, Chicagoans have sought drastic reform of the ticketing, booting, towing, and appeals processes and the policies and practices of the department of finance. The way that Chicago preys on people for revenue through predatory ticketing, booting, and seizing of vehicles has ruined thousands of lives. It has cost people their livelihoods, thrown them into bankruptcy, and taken away their ability to reasonably own any vehicle. As Mayor Lightfoot said before she became mayor, “This sort of punitive policy is wrong and counterproductive, as it makes it harder for the person to earn a paycheck if their car has been booted or sold.”
Despite campaign promises to resolve these issues and ban the boot, Mayor Lightfoot has not banned the boot and has made only minor and often temporary changes to these tools of cyclical poverty that are more like charity and PR stunts than equity.
The rest of City Council has done no better. In one way or another, every single member of City Council has claimed that they are working to fix this system, and the most we have gotten is some of them patting themselves on the back for banning private companies from booting in specific wards. They have done nothing whatsoever to stop the booting done by Chicago’s Department of Finance. They have failed to take action on extensive reporting and articles revealing the corruption of the system, including of the corrupt contractor the city empowers to steal the cars of Chicagoans, especially low-income and Black and Brown Chicagoans.
We are done waiting for another candidate to come along and try to use economic justice as a launchpad for a political career just to abandon the issues after the election. Ban The Boot Chicago (BTBC) and the people of Chicago are demanding that City Council act now to fulfill all 4 of the following interdependent necessities of economic justice by introducing and passing an ordinance by the next City Council meeting that accomplishes all of the following:
1. puts an immediate end to the doubling and tripling of tickets,
2. puts an immediate end to the booting of privately-owned vehicles,
3. puts an immediate end to the seizure of privately-owned vehicles, not including temporary relocation for emergencies, and
4. orders the immediate and unconditional return of all seized vehicles.
We know that because this is an issue that harms Black people and communities disproportionately, even though this injustice also affects non-Black people, this correction of policy will be a target for racists to double down on criminalizing what the city calls scofflaws. We anticipate further rhetoric that seeks to frame the victims of this injustice as irresponsible criminals who do not pay their bills. This compounds the fact that the current system presumes guilt and places the burden on Chicagoans to prove themselves not guilty in order to dispute tickets, which plays right into stereotypes of Black people, especially men, as criminals and gives space for implicit bias in administrative judges hired by the city.
Because of this, we must note that none of our demands pose any risk whatsoever to public safety. We are not calling to end the suspension of licenses for people who use a vehicle in a way that threatens anyone’s safety, and ultimately, the suspension of a driver’s license is a more logical way of preventing a dangerous person from threatening public safety since it would also prevent them from renting a vehicle.
We are also not calling for an end to all tickets. Doubling and tripling tickets or adding additional fees on top of a fine for no other reason than time passing does nothing to make anyone safer. The City of Chicago currently has a practice of garnishing the wages of people who have ticket debt, referring tickets to bill collectors, and negatively reporting to credit bureaus. While we do not concede that these practices are fair, we do recognize that they are more in line with regular practice for unpaid bills and, unlike seizing vehicles, at least do not directly violate the 4th amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects us from unreasonable seizure of property.
_________________________________________
Actions for Supporters:
1. Post on our Facebook Page and tag your alderperson to demand your alderperson commit to all 4 BTBC demands.
2. Post a tweet on twitter to your alderperson and us demanding that your alderperson commit to all 4 BTBC demands.
Follow us for updates:
89
The Issue
For years, Chicagoans have sought drastic reform of the ticketing, booting, towing, and appeals processes and the policies and practices of the department of finance. The way that Chicago preys on people for revenue through predatory ticketing, booting, and seizing of vehicles has ruined thousands of lives. It has cost people their livelihoods, thrown them into bankruptcy, and taken away their ability to reasonably own any vehicle. As Mayor Lightfoot said before she became mayor, “This sort of punitive policy is wrong and counterproductive, as it makes it harder for the person to earn a paycheck if their car has been booted or sold.”
Despite campaign promises to resolve these issues and ban the boot, Mayor Lightfoot has not banned the boot and has made only minor and often temporary changes to these tools of cyclical poverty that are more like charity and PR stunts than equity.
The rest of City Council has done no better. In one way or another, every single member of City Council has claimed that they are working to fix this system, and the most we have gotten is some of them patting themselves on the back for banning private companies from booting in specific wards. They have done nothing whatsoever to stop the booting done by Chicago’s Department of Finance. They have failed to take action on extensive reporting and articles revealing the corruption of the system, including of the corrupt contractor the city empowers to steal the cars of Chicagoans, especially low-income and Black and Brown Chicagoans.
We are done waiting for another candidate to come along and try to use economic justice as a launchpad for a political career just to abandon the issues after the election. Ban The Boot Chicago (BTBC) and the people of Chicago are demanding that City Council act now to fulfill all 4 of the following interdependent necessities of economic justice by introducing and passing an ordinance by the next City Council meeting that accomplishes all of the following:
1. puts an immediate end to the doubling and tripling of tickets,
2. puts an immediate end to the booting of privately-owned vehicles,
3. puts an immediate end to the seizure of privately-owned vehicles, not including temporary relocation for emergencies, and
4. orders the immediate and unconditional return of all seized vehicles.
We know that because this is an issue that harms Black people and communities disproportionately, even though this injustice also affects non-Black people, this correction of policy will be a target for racists to double down on criminalizing what the city calls scofflaws. We anticipate further rhetoric that seeks to frame the victims of this injustice as irresponsible criminals who do not pay their bills. This compounds the fact that the current system presumes guilt and places the burden on Chicagoans to prove themselves not guilty in order to dispute tickets, which plays right into stereotypes of Black people, especially men, as criminals and gives space for implicit bias in administrative judges hired by the city.
Because of this, we must note that none of our demands pose any risk whatsoever to public safety. We are not calling to end the suspension of licenses for people who use a vehicle in a way that threatens anyone’s safety, and ultimately, the suspension of a driver’s license is a more logical way of preventing a dangerous person from threatening public safety since it would also prevent them from renting a vehicle.
We are also not calling for an end to all tickets. Doubling and tripling tickets or adding additional fees on top of a fine for no other reason than time passing does nothing to make anyone safer. The City of Chicago currently has a practice of garnishing the wages of people who have ticket debt, referring tickets to bill collectors, and negatively reporting to credit bureaus. While we do not concede that these practices are fair, we do recognize that they are more in line with regular practice for unpaid bills and, unlike seizing vehicles, at least do not directly violate the 4th amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects us from unreasonable seizure of property.
_________________________________________
Actions for Supporters:
1. Post on our Facebook Page and tag your alderperson to demand your alderperson commit to all 4 BTBC demands.
2. Post a tweet on twitter to your alderperson and us demanding that your alderperson commit to all 4 BTBC demands.
Follow us for updates:
89
The Decision Makers
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on June 28, 2021